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New Beginnings: Faerdin completes the trials to become a fully-fledged Rune Knight at the age of seventeen despite his fear of Water and Fire. He is about to take part in a ceremony called The Pledge, where a newly inducted member of the Hand of the Avatars pledges their fealty to the Elemental Lords. But Faerdin is unsure whether it is right to pledge his whole being to a higher power.

The Mysterious Stranger that Faerdin had met in the woods disrupts the ceremony, however, and gives the elder members of the Hand just cause to summon and commune with the Elemental Lords through their Avatars, whereupon they give the Prophecy. When Faerdin overcomes his fears of Fire and Water and achieves inner balance within himself to defeat Xan and then Sepulchure, he ackowledges the power he had within him all along and learns that Elemental Lords seek not his fealty to themselves, but to Faerdin himself.

The Nature of the Soul: The soul is an integral part of the human body, but it is also profoundly impacted by the state of the Elemental Planes. This why people are unstable in times of great elemental unrest, why SoulWeavers who unlock the potential within themselves become spirits of elements representative of their personality and identity, and why the Sigil of the Avatars unlocks the ability to channel power from the Planes (And use of Runes). To Rune Knights, their soul is itself a portal or a gateway to the Elemental Planes themselves. This is- by extension- why Faerdin is unstable after the Shattering of the Elemental Orbs. The Elemental Planes are reeling from losing their most powerful artifacts and the Elemental Planes of Fire, Ice, and Darkness are still unbearably weak. Since Faerdin- as the last Rune Knight- is almost a bridge between Lore and the Planes, he is being ravaged and torn apart at the very soul from the conclusion of Book One onwards.

Devotion: This will also be a major theme in Rune Knight, He Who Stands Between. Some forms of devotion included will be that of love (Faerdin and Aurauris), fanaticism (The Hand of the Avatars), and unhealthy obsession (Valen and Lynaria).

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Losing Akriloth and Cryozen would have hurt Faerdin very much as well, but the combined assault of killing the Stranger and the shattering the Elemental Orbs (Together referred to as the Shattering, as the events are essentially one and the same) would have been too much to handle. And it is true that shattering the Ultimate Orb would have no discernible impact on the balance of the elements in relation to one another. But it would still be more than enough of a shock to evoke a recoil from the Elemental Planes- and possibly even make them weaker as a whole.

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Faerdin's very first days after being born were spent in Tethys with his mother (Water elf) and his father (A human and a Rune Knight) as they worked to investigate some strange whispering that came from the abyss. Through their efforts, the Water Orb was able to repel this evil's influence for some time but was still able to speak with those who were weak of mind... Like a baby, for example.

The water elves discovered Faerdin and were about as happy as any other human would be to find their kind spawning "half-breeds." So Faerdin's mother and father were both forced the flee the city despite having been responsible for the water elves' extended security against the evil below- the former being killed in the process. The escape was very traumatizing.

So yes. Faerdin really, really doesn't like the water.